2 TUNZA Vol 6 No 3 EDITORIAL C herrapunjee, high in the northeast Indian state of Meghalaya, is famous for being the wettest place on Earth. As a bold yellow sign on the way into the small town boasts, it averages a staggering 12,028.6 millimetres of rain annually. Yet for a third of each year its people are now short of water. In the dry months, from November to February, women and children have to go down into COOL the valleys to get it, trudging back uphill under backbreaking loads. For the springs that used to gush with abundance all year round are drying up because the mountain forests, which used to trap

& the rainfall and allow it to percolate down to the water table, have been felled.

COOLER All over the world, the poor are making similar daily treks, often to bring back only dirty water. In all, a billion or more people lack access to steady, safe supplies. As a result some 5,000 people, mainly children, die every day from diarrhoea and other diseases the equivalent of more than 15 jumbo jets crashing daily. If everyone in the world had safe water and adequate sanitation, the global incidence of death andCOOL: Make a low-ush lavatory by put- disease would be cut by three quarters. It is one of the greatest scandalsting a plastic bag lled with pebbles, a of history that these have not already been supplied.brick, or a plastic bottle of water in thecistern. This could save up to 1,135 litres At the same time, water is becoming scarcer and scarcer as theof water per month. number of people on the planet increases and the vital services that nature provides to conserve and supply water are ignored, abusedCOOLER: Harvest and store water with and destroyed. Already, a third of the worlds people live in countriesa rainwater butt collecting runoff from suffering water scarcity; by 2025 this proportion is expected to havethe roof. Use it for watering the garden, shot up to two thirds.ushing lavatories, in washing machinesand for washing cars, or even ltered as There are some signs of hope. Much is being done to provide cleandrinking water. water where it is needed. The world may yet meet the target set by its governments in the Millennium Development Goals to halve theCOOLEST: Build an aquaponics system a proportion of the worlds people without access to clean water bycombination of aquaculture (sh farming) 2015. But hundreds of millions will still not have it. Meanwhile, theand hydroponics (farming without soil) destruction of the worlds natural systems and the loss of their vital in the garden or garage or even on the role in providing water continues apace. There are few tasks moreroof. Wastes produced by the sh nourish urgent or important than conserving the worldsthe plants, which in turn purify the water. water supplies and making sure that they are available to all. We must pledge ourselves to ensure that these are achieved.COOL: Keep a bottle of clean tap water inthe refrigerator for drinking. This avoidsrunning the tap until the water cools,which can save more than 300 litres amonth.

COOLER: Carry a rellable water bottle

to replenish rather than buying anddiscarding new bottles.

COOLEST: Go and see Flow: For the

Love of Water, which argues that waterdistribution should be based on needand environmental sustainability notcommercial gain and stresses that noone can go on taking water for granted.

Water 3 Hidden water

Vanessa Pike-Russell

By Fred Pearce, environmental author and correspondent of New Scientist

I NEQUALITY comes in litres. While most of the but please dont buy the T-shirt. You could fill roughly poor have too little water to meet their needs, the 25 bathtubs with the water needed to grow the cotton relatively well-off consume enormous amounts. to make it. Indeed, few realize quite how much water someone living a Western urban lifestyle whether in Europe or North In all, an average citizen of the United States consumes America, or among the middle classes in developing 2,483 cubic metres a year about three times as much countries actually uses. as a Kenyan or a Chinese. For myself, I reckon that, as a typical meat-eating, milk-guzzling European, I account Its not the obvious uses that really add up. On average, for as much as a hundred times my own weight in water each person drinks not much more than 5 litres of the every day. stuff daily. Even after washing and flushing the lavatory, it increases to only around 150 litres each. But that is just the WHERE DOES IT ALL COME FROM? start. The numbers begin to soar when the water needed to Some of that water falls as rain on fields. But most of the produce food and drink is added in. food and all the cotton consumed around the world is grown using water collected from rivers or pumped It takes between 2,000 and 3,500 litres of water to grow from underground. In some places, two, three or even a kilo of rice. That is more water than many families use in a four times more water is taken to irrigate crops than a week. It takes 1,000 litres to grow a kilo of wheat, and 500 generation ago and as a result these once abundant litres for a kilo of potatoes. sources are drying up.

And when you start feeding grain to animals to make meat Many places are in danger of running out of water. In and milk and cheese, the numbers become even more India, farmers are taking 100 cubic kilometres more startling. It takes 11,000 litres thats 11 tonnes to grow the water from underground sources every year than the food for enough cow to make one hamburger; and between rains replace. Thats six times more water than Britain, 2,000 and 4,000 litres for it to produce a litre of milk. for example, uses in a year.

Every teaspoonful of sugar in a cup of coffee requires 50 As rivers run dry and underground water tables fall, R Sriraghavan, Dubai

cups of water to grow it. Thats a lot, but not as much as countries have tried to get round such local crises the 140 litres of water (or 1,120 cups) needed to grow through trade. Not in water itself which is too heavy the coffee itself. Growing cotton for clothes is no better. and expensive to transport far. Instead, more and more dry On the Internet you can buy jokey T-shirts with slogans and densely populated countries are importing thirsty crops like Save water, bath with a friend. Its a good message, rather than growing them themselves.

4 TUNZA Vol 6 No 3Economists call the water needed to grow these traded So what else? Moving water over the hills from one rivercrops virtual water. Think of it this way: every tonne of basin to another from wet regions to drier regions iswheat arriving at a dockside carries with it, in virtual form, possible. China is spending $60 billion on a series of vastthe 1,000 tonnes of water needed to grow it. All sorts of canals to move water from the wet south to the arid north.traded products require water for their production: it takes, India is talking about an even bigger project to pump waterfor example, about 400,000 litres of water to manufacture from the great monsoon rivers of the north, like the Ganges,a car. But about 90 per cent of the virtual water trade is to the dry south and west. But it is very costly, becausein food and cotton. water is heavy and expensive to pump uphill.

The biggest exporters are the United States of America, GETTING IT RIGHTAustralia and Canada, while major importers include Japan First, we need to get better at catching the rain where itand Europe and, increasingly, China, which no longer falls. I have visited villages across India and China wherehas enough water to grow the food it needs. In one way they are doing just this reviving ancient methods ofthis trade is good news. The Middle East, for instance, capturing the rain and pouring it into their wells to be usedran out of water to feed itself some years ago, the first major during the dry season. The water-rich, like me, also needregion ever to do so. Without the trade, Jordan, Iran, Egypt a revolution to use water more efficiently in their dailyand Algeria would starve. There would be water wars. lives. Huge gains can be made by such simple measures as turning off the tap while brushing teeth, using a bucketVIRTUAL WATER: REAL SHORTAGE rather than a hosepipe to water the garden or wash the car,Virtual water carries risks because not everyone can be a net or not always flushing the lavatory.importer; someone has to do the exporting. Water prices havesoared round the world in the last two years, partly because But agriculture, as the biggest user of water, especially inAustralia, a major source of thirsty crops, had a drought. Its the driest countries, can contribute most. Tens of millionsexports of rice, sugar and wheat fell by more than half. of farmers worldwide still irrigate their crops simply by flooding their fields. Most of the water evaporates andClimate change means that more and more countries are little, in practice, reaches the plants. But cheap, modernlikely to suffer droughts in future. Who will feed them? In systems of drip irrigation can deliver it drop by drop close tosuch a world, countries that rely on importing virtual water the crop roots, cutting demand by 50 per cent or more.could be in trouble. So there are solutions. If water is used right, everyone canWhat can be done to provide enough water? There are be fed and have water. But first it must be properly valued.some technical solutions. Coastal regions can desalinate It must be treasured, not wasted.seawater, for instance. That is OK for providing drinkingwater, but too expensive for the big users like farmers. THE NEW OIL? Some say that water is the new oil that it will be theSome countries will build more reservoirs to catch the cause of wars in the 21st century, as black gold waswater in their rivers. But in more and more places, the the cause in the last one. Maybe so. But water is evenrivers are already drying up. A global study published more important than oil: after all, the worlds peoplerecently showed that a quarter of the worlds people live could manage without oil, if we had to. But no onein river basins where the water is already fully used. can manage, even for one day, without water.

Carrie Cizauskas

Water 5Q&AQ Will the world ever run out of water? Q As the worlds glaciers melt, what are the prospects like for the billion people on Earth that depend on them forA No, but for a lot of people it may feel like it. The amount water?of water in the Earths system remains constant, but bothpopulation and demands are growing. And climate change A Not good. Glaciers are incomparable stores of water,will shift rainfall patterns, making some places much drier, steadily releasing vital supplies, especially when they are mostand melt glaciers depriving vast populations of a steady needed in the warmest weather. Without them the water willsource of water. rush straight off the mountains as the snows melt, causing rst oods, then water scarcity. It is an issue of survival.

Q What must be done to ensure that water is fairly dis-

tributed so that everyone has access to it? Q What can be done to prevent 5 billion people suffering from water stress and scarcity by 2050, as is currentlyA Our present failure to provide safe water and sanitation predicted?to all results in the death of some 1.8 million people, mainlychildren, from water-related diseases each year. We all must A Clearly we cant continue on our current path. We all needbe aware that the world contains a xed amount of water and to practise sustainable water resource management. Therethere are ever more of us dependent upon it. Water is our are more efcient ways of managing water with existingcommon heritage, but it is also our common responsibility. technologies, but there is also a need for further researchThe rst step is to meet the commitment in the United and development. And, as citizens, we should all look at ourNations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), to halve, consumption habits, and see if there are ways to reduce ourby 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable use of water. International cooperation also has a majoraccess to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. role to play, with countries coming together to build a global consensus on actions to counter global water shortages.

Q Most countries in West and Central Africa are unlikely

to meet the Millennium Development Goal of cutting by half Q Since over 97 per cent of Earths water is salty, why isthe proportion of people without safe drinking water. Do they desalination not more widely adopted? Is it a viable option?need more investments in infrastructure and equipment, orare there more basic solutions? A We do know how to desalinate water, and some very water-short countries, particularly in the Middle East, areA Investment is needed if we are to meet the MDGs, and on doing it. But large-scale desalination requires expensivea wide scale infrastructure and equipment are essential of plants and sophisticated equipment, and is very energycourse. But we also need enough managers, engineers and intensive. Nonetheless, if we can truly harness renewablefarmers who understand the need for a sustainable future energy sources like wind, tide and solar power, it may become to help provide healthier and more secure lives for all. a more realistic option.

6 TUNZA Vol 6 No 3 STAR PUPILS

WaterAid

Nienke Flederus, Dana Weidemann, Alex Lindsay, Angharad Thomas and Zartash Javaid made short films about theimportance of water for a competition run by Simavi in the Netherlands and WaterAid in the United Kingdom andwon a trip to the villages of Mchemwa, Chingongwe and Msembeta in central Tanzania to look at water and sanitation.They talked to TUNZA when they got home.

When we first arrived, we hadnt a

clue what to expect. At first we were a It was a real eye-opener to see how they live, without clean water and from drinking dirty water, stopping them from being able to go to school.bit shy, but we were warmly welcomed basic sanitation. Coming from Europe,by the villagers, singing and dancing we had not realized the size of the This trip was a great chance to seefor us, and soon found we could ask problem or that dirty water caused so projects funded by WaterAid andanything and have all our questions many of the diseases and deaths in such Simavi and to understand what they doanswered. The women and children communities. and why and how they work. We havetold us that they have to get up early learnt so much about the differencesto go and collect water. But even when In one village we helped lay foundations between life in the poorest parts ofthey get it, it is not clean. for a water pump: it was hard work Tanzania and back at home in Europe. It but it was really rewarding to be able has been a life-changing experience. IfThey showed us the place where they to help, even in this small way. We only everyone at home could see whatcould still collect water several months especially enjoyed visiting the schools: we have seen, they would understandafter the end of the rainy season a large, we were allowed to sit among the just how lucky we are, in our part ofdry area but for a few holes containing pupils, who told us about themselves. the world, to have such simple things asextremely grey, dirty water. Almost everyone said they are often ill water and sanitation.

In Tanzania, women and children spend an average of more than two hours a day collecting water; in some areas, this journey can take six to seven hours. Tanzanias Ministry of Water statistics show that 70 per cent of rural communities and 30 per cent of urban communities have no access to safe water. In Tanzania, diarrhoea is said to be responsible for at least 20 per cent of the countrys infant deaths. Worldwide, some 5,000 people mostly children die every day as a result of diseases caused by unclean water and poor sanitation. Around a billion people do not have steady access to safe water roughly one in seven of the worlds population. 2.5 billion people nearly two fths of the worlds population do not have access to adequate sanitation. To meet the Millennium Development Goal targets of halving the proportion of people living without water and sanitation by 2015, total global investments in water and sanitation would need to double.

Water 7Water works

Mattes / Andia.fr/Still Pictures

Getting pumped River detox In agricultural Myanmar, many small farming house- Local government, private industries, environmental holds have to survive on less than $2 a day. Farmers groups and academia have teamed up to save the river naturally need water to make their land productive and systems of the Bulacan province, which provide water, its available, but its also time-consuming and physically food and livelihoods to over 250,000 people. This water challenging to get out of the ground with hand pumps. is contaminated by toxic heavy metals from unmonitored Most farmers nd diesel pumps, and the fuel they re- wastewater dumping by various industries along river- quire, too costly. banks. One of the worst is chromium, which can cause dermatitis and, at high concentrations, even cancer. I work with International Development Enterprises, a non-governmental organization that helps rural families At university, I applied what I learned in microbiology to help get water with foot-treadle pumps. We design, produce try to solve the problem, isolating microbes that produce and distribute them, using research from Stanford Uni- hydrogen sulphide gas. This precipitates and transforms versity. They save time and energy, taking only half an the chromium into a much less toxic compound, making hour to get enough water to irrigate a small plot, com- the metal more manageable and less risky to isolate. In pared to two hours with hand pumps. They also easily the lab, the microbes effectively reduced the chromium by bring water up from 7.5 metres below ground. 99 per cent in four to seven days. Research is under way to establish a full understanding of what happens to the The extra time and water allow farmers to increase bacteria during and after treatment, and a more efcient their cultivation and produce better-quality crops, which and large-scale programme is being designed. they sell to raise money to educate their children, thus helping the family escape poverty. The pump is so easy Clarisse Quimio, 21, Bayer Young Environmental Envoy that even blind people can operate it and so can chil- 2007, Philippines dren when they get home from school. So far over 27,000 families in Myanmar have purchased the treadle pumps, doubling their incomes.

Naw Tsai Blut Moo, 23, Tunza International Youth For the birds Conference delegate, 2007, Myanmar The Konya Closed Basin gets the least rain in Turkey, but holds 40 per cent of the countrys total potential fresh- water resources in a deep groundwater lake. But such is demand, especially for irrigation, that the water is being extracted twice as fast as it is replaced. Wetlands in the area have begun drying up, bad news for migrating birds such as cormorants, pelicans, ducks and terns. Many no longer stop there.

As an engineering student, I have developed a system to

treat and divert wastewater to irrigate crops in the basin. The cleaned water is carried to the elds in existing drain- age canals, so there is no need for new infrastructure. The system solves two problems at once: reducing water pol- lution and conserving groundwater. I have received fund- ing from WWF, the global conservation organization, and done preliminary feasibility studies. Positive results mean that the next step is to build a prototype. International Development Enterprises

Sinem Erdogdu, 24, Bayer Young Environmental Envoy

2007 and WWF, Turkey

8 TUNZA Vol 6 No 3Adopt a riverMy youth group, the Zimbabwe Youth EnvironmentNetwork, has taken the initiative to clean up the MasuieRiver, a tributary of the Zambezi. We took a water sample,sent it to a laboratory for testing, and found it was notsafe to drink. We began meeting every two months topick up papers and car parts littering the river. Eventuallywe realized that most of the rubbish was coming from anearby tip, so we lobbied the local authority to move it to adifferent place or nd ways of containing the rubbish.

We also met poor people scavenging for something to

Green Actioneat and helped them learn about the danger of eatingpolluted food. As a result of our work, litter at the tip isnow being sorted and disposed of appropriately, and theauthorities have advised people to boil their drinkingwater. Our group continues to monitor water quality, pickup rubbish and look for more ways to make our water asclean as possible. Buffalo bullNominater Mpala, 22, Zimbabwe Youth Environment Years ago in Debreshte, our small agricultural village,Network (ZIYEN), Zimbabwe nearly all households bred water buffalo. They provided dairy products and, by grazing, helped prevent wetlands becoming overgrown. But with the mechanization of ag- riculture, they became very rare. My youth environmentFire and water group, Green Action, investigated the issue and discov- ered that the last 13 water buffalo in our entire countryIt was festival time in the small town of San Lucas Tolimn, lived in our village, kept by a single household for milk.Guatemala, which sits on the banks of the beautiful LagoAtitln, the deepest lake in Central America. But there was no bull, and those females had not been pregnant for almost three years. If they lost their abilityAnd I had organized it. As a volunteer for IPADE a non- to produce milk, they would be slaughtered for meat. Wegovernmental organization helping to improve water began raising awareness in the village, collecting fundsquality and supply to nearby farming communities I to buy food for the animals, and applied to the UN Smallwanted to focus attention on the importance of water Grants Programme for money to buy a buffalo bull,by celebrating it (and the fact that all human beings are which we donated to the breeder.made of it) through spirituality, art and education. As a result of our project which won second place inThe Festival de Agua Ya started with a parade: some 900 Volvo Adventure 2008 young people in the region havechildren and young people marched from the city gates to learned about the importance of the water buffalo, thethe central park dressed in brightly coloured traditional owners are beneting from the milk, local citizens arecostumes, some relating to water myths. For the rest of relearning traditional practices, and best of all we havethe day, the youth shared artwork, musical performances, several new buffalo calves securing the future.videos and discussions about how to get involved in waterconservation. All discussions touched on the importance Aleksandra Aceska, 15, Green Action, Volvo Adventureof caring for water and, therefore, all of life. 2008, FYR Macedonia

For me, the highlight was inaugurating a mosaic mural

dedicated to water and peace. I had designed it as an actof urban recycling, and with other young people weput the pieces together, turning an abandoned lot into abeautiful public space.

As the sun went down, we lit a sacred re in a ceremony

of thanks, presided over by ajqij, Mayan priests who withdevotion and in the ancestral language delivered ablessing of universal love to San Lucas Tolimn.

Oscar Glvez, 24, Tunza International Youth

Conference delegate, 2007, Chile

Water 9R ICE FEEDS HALF THE WORLD crease yields while using up to half as It requires less than a tenth of the seed and demand is growing as much water and fertilizer. needed for conventional cultivation both populations and appetites cutting down on costs and involvesincrease. By 2040 humanity will need Originally developed in Madagascar in the individual planting of young seed-to produce 1 billion tonnes each year, the early 1980s by a French Jesuit priest, lings (less than 10 days old), at regularly40 per cent more than now. Henri de Laulani, the System of Rice spaced 25cm intervals. The most dif- Intensification (or more popularly SRI), ficult thing is persuading farmersBut the worlds most important crop is not technology, but methodology, to plant such young seedlings, saysalso needs more water to grow than any explains Gujja. Farmers can choose a Gujja, but this is the most importantother. Producing just a single kilogram variety of their own choice, but need step for facilitating the absorption ofof rice requires a massive 2,000 to to cultivate it differently using SRI sunlight and, later, for weeding.3,500 litres depending on the climate principles and practices.and the type of soil in which it is And whereas growing rice in stagnantcultivated. In India it accounts for more Perhaps its most dramatic innovation is water demands ever larger amounts ofthan 70 per cent of all the water used in to do away with the flooded paddy field, increasingly expensive fertilizers andagriculture. concentrating on keeping the soil moist pesticides, SRI uses organic manures instead. The flooding, says Gujja, is used or less than half the usual dose ofAlready, rice cultivation is seriously only to control weeds. Instead, under inorganic fertilizers, most of whichdepleting groundwater supplies in many SRI, farmers weed the land themselves would usually drain into rivers orareas and even leading to local conflicts using simple tools, but this has the underground, causing nutrient over-over water. So how can humanity added benefit of aerating the soil and load and pollution.possibly hope to produce what it is mixing nutrients. This is a somewhatgoing to need in an increasingly water- difficult task initially, he says, but once Water savings, he adds, are reportedconstrained world? By changing the farmers see the benefit and importance to be between 30 and 50 per cent.way it is grown, says Biksham Gujja, they get used to it. The weeding helps The increase in yield varies dependingWWFs policy advisor on global water the plants to develop more robust roots, on local conditions, but is usually 30issues. He says that switching to a new facilitating absorption of nutrients, re- to 40 per cent more than with a con-system now used in over 40 countries ducing the input cost of fertilizers and ventional system, so at least a tonne(albeit on a small scale) can greatly in- resulting in better yields. more per hectare is possible in most

Respect! Tunza Youth Advisor Jamal Alfalasi explains how the people and authorities of the United Arab Emirates are addressing water needs in this water-short but rapidly developing country.

Imagine youre in a desert country with the sun blazing right

above. Theres hardly any shade, and no water in sight. Feeling thirsty?

This was the parched existence of my ancestors Arabs

who trailed oceans of sand in search of their two most pre- cious commodities: knowledge and water. Knowledge was exchanged between towns and tribes; water was less easily found. My ancestors got most of it from wells that tapped into groundwater. Using their knowledge and experience, they managed to nd it in the most remote places. A single date palm indicated groundwater close to the surface, for example, because it extends its roots horizontally rather than vertically.

I dont think I could have survived such conditions. Luckily, I

dont have to! With todays technology, I can get fresh, clean water with a turn of a tap in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country with scarce natural freshwater resources. Shabier Ahmed

Groundwater is still used for drinking, but its simply not

enough for the high demands of a quickly developing city like Dubai. So, in 1988, it adopted an expensive but effective way to

10 TUNZA Vol 6 No 3 Going with the grainplaces. Many farmers have reportedyields above 10 tonnes per hectare(Indias national average is 3) and evenup to 15.

Some agri-scientists remain sceptical

but farmers from 40 countries, fromMali to India, are enthusiastic. In theera of a water crisis, a food crisis anda financial crisis, this is a simple farm-based solution that needs no heavyinvestment in infrastructure, no long-term scientific development of specialrice varieties, and no expensive inputs.Communities can help themselves,increase yields, and teach their peersrather than having to rely on experts.

And of course theres a climate-

provide freshwater: desalination plants that pump seawater And while desalination is an ingenious technology that im-from the Arabian Gulf and evaporate it to remove the salts. proves many peoples quality of life, it requires fossil fuels,As the plants desalinate the water, steam is produced to turn which emit carbon dioxide, and needs more energy than itturbines that provide the city with electricity. Dubai isnt alone: provides. The process also throws the acidity levels of the seadesalination plants now account for 77 per cent of total water off balance, affecting life around desalination plants, such asproduction in the Gulf region. dugongs, many types of corals and sh, and seagrass.

But just because water is more easily accessible doesnt The UAE is trying to combat these problems by increasingmean we have lost respect for its value. As an Arab and water awareness among its many different ethnic communities.Muslim, appreciation for water is entwined with my culture Dubai now prohibits groundwater withdrawal beyond a spe-and religion. I was raised to use it efciently, wisely and with a cic level, while the UAE is looking to non-carbon energiessense of respect. I perform ve prayers a day. Before I pray, I such as solar and nuclear, which may help fuel desalination incleanse myself with water, through ablution. Youd think this the future.would use up lots of water, but what is used for ablution inthe masjid (mosque) is then used to water its garden. Still, Non-governmental organizations, government authorities andin a metropolitan, multicultural city like Dubai, some of these even youth activists have come together to support a newvalues are fading, which sometimes means that not everyone regulation passed by the Dubai electricity and water authority,shares this sense of respect. which states that all taps should have a water-reduction lter. The authority has been distributing these for free, whileThats too bad, because even with desalination, theres not supermarkets have been selling them relatively cheaply.always enough. Dubais population is growing and its economy Campaigning along with my fellow activists, I have been goingis booming faster than anywhere in the world, so water demand to schools and universities to increase awareness.is increasing dramatically, while supply is diminishing. In2007, for example, the citys demand was 365,646 million The future is uncertain, and problems have yet to be solved.litres, while desalination plants provided 361,673 million But I am proud of my country for acknowledging the issues,litres. Groundwater, not easily recharged in the region, had to and acting swiftly to change the situation and I am sure thatmake up the shortfall. the solution is on its way.

Water 11 ALL WATER of which: Wheres the water? Oceans 97.5%

Freshwater W e call this the blue planet: water covers 70 per cent of the Earths surface, and thats a lot of water. So whats all the fuss about the world running out?

2.5% Well, its not actually running out. Earths land, oceans and atmosphere hold a xed amount of water about 1.26 billion trillion litres in the forms of ice, vapour, or of which: liquid. And nature endlessly circulates all this water via the process known as the hydrologic or water cycle (see below). This means that the water coming out of your Ice caps and glaciers tap is every bit as recycled as the air that you breathe it could once have been sipped 79% by a dinosaur!

Easily The real problem is availability. About 97.5 per cent of Earths water is in the oceans, accessible and therefore unt for drinking. The 2.5 per cent that is fresh is mainly locked up in Groundwater surface 20% freshwater ice and groundwater, leaving only about 0.007 per cent in the forms of lakes, rivers, 1% reservoirs and shallow underground sources, which are replenished by the processes of evaporation and precipitation readily available for people to use. of which:

This relatively tiny amount is unevenly distributed around the world: there is almost Lakes 52% no rainfall in deserts, for example, but there are several metres per year in the rainforests. Just a handful of the worlds biggest rivers such as the Amazon and Congo carry most of the planets freshwater ow, while arid and semi-arid regions, which comprise 40 per cent of the Earths landmass, carry only 2 per cent of global Soil moisture 38% runoff.

In regions where water is plentiful, it is often misused polluted, wasted and

Rivers 1% overexploited. In the meantime, the ever increasing human population, along withWater within living organisms 1% Atmospheric water vapour 8% ever more thirsty consumption habits, is stretching this nite resource even thinner.

How it works

Moisture over land

Precipitation over land

Condensation Storage in Evaporation from land ice and snow Evapotranspiration Surface runoff Precipitation over ocean

Water available per person

per year, estimated for 2025

less than 500m3

Scarcity 500 1,000m3

1,000 1,700m3 Stress

1,700 4,000m3 4,000 10,000m3 Enough more than 10,000m3 Source: UNEP

Already, demand for water is outstripping supply in much of the world, with about 50 countries suffering water stress orscarcity all the year round, and even more going short at certain times of the year. Even within countries, water availabilityvaries from region to region because it depends on catchments and river basins, not on political boundaries, as the map aboveshows. Many parts of the world that are currently under water stress are expected to move to a state of water scarcity, andsome that appear to have enough water for now will begin to experience stress.

Evaporation InltrationThe suns energy transforms water from a liquid to a gas, at When water hits the ground, part of it seeps into the earth,which point it enters the atmosphere as water vapour. About becoming groundwater. The rate at which this happens80 per cent of evaporation comes from the oceans; about depends on the soils permeability the rate at which water10 per cent comes from inland water (like lakes and rivers); can be absorbed and ow through it. Both soil and vegetationand around 10 per cent from vegetation, which absorbs retain a certain amount of water, but the rest of it percolateswater from deep in the soil and delivers it to the atmosphere down and settles in the gaps between soil particles in anthrough plant stems and leaves. Surface air currents also underground layer. The top of this layer is called the wateraffect evaporation the windier it is, the faster the water table, which rises as the soil becomes more saturated.changes from liquid to vapour. Winds then blow the water When groundwater is exploited faster than precipitation canvapour all over the world, affecting humidity levels. replenish it, the water table falls.

Condensation RunoffAs warm air rises it cools, and the colder it gets, the less When the soil can no longer absorb more water whetherwater vapour it can hold. This condenses and forms droplets because it is too saturated, the surface is frozen, or it haswhich are lifted by rising air such as the currents that been degraded by deforestation, agriculture or grazing move over mountains or from above the ocean to the land water runs across the surface of the earth, forming streams and form clouds. that feed rivers and oceans. Where there is not enough of a channel to contain the runoff, ooding occurs.TransportEvaporated moisture is moved around the world in the form Aquifersof water vapour and clouds via air currents such as wind, Water percolates downward until it hits impermeable rock,breezes and jet streams. where it is stored. If the aquifer lls up, water can move on to feed lakes, rivers and the ocean, or push back upPrecipitation through the soil as springs. When water becomes trappedWhen the air can no longer hold water vapour, either because underground and sealed off so that it cant be recharged, itit has cooled or because it has become over-saturated, the is called a fossil aquifer. The water in these aquifers can bewater condenses and falls to Earth in the form of rain, snow, thousands of years old, and is considered a non-renewablehail, and so on. resource.

Water 13 EMBRACE THE TAP E mbrace the tap. With that slogan the city of London, Ontario stopped the sale of bottled water at city-run premises such as ofces, community centres and sports arenas. Seattle and San Francisco have taken similar steps, and Chicago is taxing bottled water. Suddenly the plastic water bottle long seen as a cool accessory carried by sports teams and thirsty people on the go is being seen as antisocial.

WHY? The approximately 200 billion litres of bottled water consumed each year is increasingly being recognized as a massive waste of resources in a world where they are getting ever scarcer. Enough oil to fuel 100,000 cars is used just to make a years worth of plastic water bottles in North America alone. And more fossil fuels are burned helping to warm the planet in shipping the water around the world. All in all, it has been estimated, each bottle has consumed enough oil by the time it is drunk to ll it a quarter full.

The process wastes water too: for every litre of water poured into a bottle, another two are used in its manufacture. And four out of every ve of the bottles some 27 million tonnes of plastic, which could have been recycled end up in waste dumps.

MAINS WATER Mains water, that comes out of a tap after travelling through a vast infrastructure of underground pipe, is far more resource efcient and very much cheaper than bottled water. And despite its image and the marketing hype surrounding bottled brands it is usually just as safe to drink in developed countries, and other areas that can give it adequate treatment. Sometimes it is even more so: worrying levels of contaminants have shown up in some bottled waters.

In many parts of the world, of course, the only clean water available comes out of a bottle. But that still does not make bottled water the solution, for it is far too expensive for the 1 billion poor who can only get unsafe drinking water. There is an urgent need to make sure that everyone has access to clean supplies.

IT CAN BE DONE The Millennium Development Goals, adopted by the worlds governments, stipulate that the proportion of the worlds people who dont have access to safe drinking water should be cut in half by 2015 and the world has made remarkable progress towards this goal. But much still needs to be done. After all, as former UN Secretary General Ko Annan puts it, the lack of safe water jeopardizes both the physical and social health of all people. It is an affront to human dignity.

How about diverting some of the vast resources devoted to supplying

unnecessary and wasteful bottled water to the rich to meeting the needs of the poor instead? Steve Randolph Jay Dee

14 TUNZA Vol 6 No 3GOING FOR GREENF ew sportsmen are bigger or more astonishing than the 2.29-metre tall Yao Ming. The 28-year-old Chinese centre for the National Basketball Associations Houston Rockets is one of the most popular athletes inthe United States of America. In China, where he plays for the national team,millions more claim him as their own. Indeed the worlds eyes were on him ashe carried his countrys flag for China at the opening ceremony of the 2008Beijing Olympics.

BRIGHT STARYaos given name, Ming, means bright, a character that comprises the charactersfor sun and moon. But he now also officially represents the planet. In August2008, he accepted an invitation from the United Nations Environment Programmeto serve as its first-ever Environmental Champion, agreeing to harness the love ofsports to help make greenness cool. Through sport, he says. I will work with young people across the world andtry to inspire them to plant trees, use energy-efficient light bulbs, harvest rain-water and to become environmental champions in their own communities. Born 28 years ago to two former basketball players then Chinas tallestcouple Yaos destiny might seem to have been fixed from the start. But he wasa reluctant athlete, a bookish boy who would rather read about ancient Chinesehistory than play ball. All the same, he began training in a sports school six daysa week before his ninth birthday. By the age of 17 he was playing professionallyfor the Shanghai Sharks, and in 2002, at 22, he joined the Houston Rockets the first international player to be drafted first overall in a National BasketballAssociation Draft.

GREEN PIONEERHe has, however, always wanted to be a pioneer an explorer travelling intonew worlds rather than someone simply following in his parents oversizedfootsteps. In 2006 as part of a campaign by the conservation group WildAid he declared that he would no longer eat sharks fin soup. By doing so he riskedcontroversy and his own popularity, since the dish which dates back hundredsof years is a well-established part of Chinese traditional cuisine, particularlyat formal banquets. But he addressed a serious problem: catching sharks fortheir fins, and then throwing the rest of the carcass away, is devastating thespecies. As the human population increases, many wildlife species are decreasing,he says. The primary reason is that people fail to treat animals as friends. He also wants to green his own profession. Around the time of the Olympics,he called on organizers of major sporting events to make sure they use publictransport facilities, build proper waste management systems and use greenerforms of energy. After the disastrous Chinese earthquake in May 2008 which killed some80,000 people, including many schoolchildren he gave $2 million to therelief fund and then launched the Yao Ming Foundation to raise money to buildseismically safe schools. Once this relief work is completed, the Foundationwill raise funds and awareness of childrens wellness and welfare issues inChina and the United States. Yao is also to receive an honorary degree fromthe University of Hong Kong for his work supporting the prevention and cureof AIDS. Sport has taught him that, no matter how skilled individual players may be, itis the team that counts. It is the combined efforts of many people that will make Getty Images

the difference for the environment too, he says. I sincerely believe that smallactions done by many over a long period of time can really bring about positivechange. By doing a little now we can avoid doing a lot later. Please join me inthis global team effort.

Eco-Camp KOREAS urrounded by sea on three sides, the Republic of Korea has a wealth of both fresh- and saltwater wetlands, ve of which are recognized as sites of international importance. Yet wetlands are also the countrys most threatened habitat, often being drained for agriculture, or for industrial or housing development. For instance, the reclamation project at Saemangeum, the most important shorebird site in the Yellow Sea, recently attracted worldwide attention because ithas destroyed the habitat of 400,000 migratory shorebirds. So its no wonder that the theme of the 2008 Bayer Young Environmental Envoy (BYEE) Korean Eco-Camp was HealthyWetlands, Healthy People. Each year, Bayer honours young people from 18 countries who have demonstrated theircommitment to environmental work. Young environmentalists are invited to attend national Eco-Camps in their own countries an opportunity to broaden their knowledge and two or more from each country are selected to travel to the annual BYEEinternational conference in Leverkusen, Germany. Wha Young Cha (24) and Yumi Chang (22), two of the delegates chosen to represent Korea in 2008, told TUNZA how theKorean Eco-Camp had opened their eyes to the plight of wetlands.

TUNZA: Tell us about what you did during Eco-Camp. Korea. If our wetlands are not protected, some birds may notChang: We were taken to visit some of the most beautiful be able to rest or eat, and will starve.wetland sites in the country: Janghang foreshore, Upo Chang: And I was shocked that it takes as much as six monthswetland and Suncheon Bay two of which are internationally for a foreshore to recover from simple human activitiesprotected areas. such as stepping on the ground. I remember as a child walk-Cha: Before the camp, most of us knew little about Koreas ing with my friends along a beach, digging to nd little crabswetlands or how important they are but we had come to and clams. We ran and jumped. Now I understand how welearn. Together, we went on a crash course. might have harmed the animals living there. Clearly theres a need to educate even very young people about the impactTUNZA: What did you learn about wetlands and the role they they can have.play in the global ecosystem?Chang: We learned how wetlands store water, lter pollution, TUNZA: What solutions do you think there might be, and howand serve as spawning grounds and habitat for a huge can youth play a role?diversity of animals and plants. Wetlands also help maintain Cha: One good idea is to enlist the residents of the wetlands tothe health of surrounding ecosystems reducing ooding help conserve them. After all, they are the people who standin downstream communities or by removing nutrients from to benet or lose the most. And international conventions onwastewater, for example and they are important for peoples wetlands are very important, because wetlands preservationlivelihoods. But wetlands have global inuence, too: they have is a cross-border issue. I do not expect perfect solutions froma signicant effect on air quality because they are integral to youth, nor can I boast that youth can bring back the damagedthe nitrogen, sulphur, methane and carbon dioxide cycles. environment. But I dont doubt that we can bring about change by taking small actions.TUNZA: Did you learn anything that surprised you? Chang: After all, humans are part of an interdependentCha: Yes! I had no idea how many migratory birds from around ecosystem. We should all put our heads together to help ndthe world use Koreas wetlands. Birds that have spent seasons solutions regardless of our age, nationality, background andin Australia move to Alaska via wetlands in the Republic of economic situation or there will be no bright future for us.

16 TUNZA Vol 6 No 3 A LL CROPS NEED WATER, and where there is not enough rain farmers need to provide it by irrigation if they are to get good harvests. Since 1950, the amount of irrigated land around the globe has doubled, which has done a lot to help increase food production to meet the growing world population and its increasing demands.

But irrigation is as old as civilization itself. And one of the

most ingenious systems ever invented, the qanat, originated in Persia some 3,000 years ago.

It works by carrying underground water from hills and

Farrukh Younus mountains down a gently sloping man-made tunnel, often many kilometres long. The tunnels are punctuated with vertical shafts for ventilation and maintenance, and provide people with a reliable supply of drinking water as well as irrigation for fields.

The precision engineering and architecture that went into

the qanats confirms the Persians place among the great

Ideas ancient civilizations. Qanats are so sophisticated and well

built that more than 22,000 with 273,588 kilometres of underground tunnels remain in use in Iran alone; by contrast the aqueducts of ancient Rome have long been largely tourist attractions.

on The system was so successful that it spread widely. Remnants

of qanats are scattered throughout the lands where the Persians and then Islam traded, invaded and interacted from China in the east to Peru in the west.

It began in 518 BC when the Persians introduced the

the technology to Egypt: remnants of a qanat built to carry

water over 150 kilometres from the Nile to the oasis of Karg are still in use. The system then spread rapidly throughout the Arabian peninsular, on to Pakistan, and northeastwards along the Silk Road trading route. Todays qanat museum in Turpan, China, shows how well the technology worked and

move how highly it is regarded helping farmers here in the arid

northwest of the country.

And as Islam spread westward along North Africa and up

into Sicily and Spain, so too did the technology. So crucial were the irrigation systems to the rich and abundant agriculture of Al Andalus, that when this Moorish empire was finally conquered and all Moors expelled from Spain in 1492 AD a small number of Moorish farmers were forced to remain to operate and maintain the irrigation systems, and train the Spanish to maintain them.

In the same year that the Moors left Spain, Christopher

Columbus first stepped on American soil, and the Spanish conquistadores who followed took qanat technology across the Atlantic to the dry climes of Central and South America. Evidence can still be found in western Mexico, in the Atacama regions of Peru, and in Chile at Nazca and Pica.

Despite centuries of technological progress, the qanat is

Ellen Mack

still so useful that this year students from UNESCOs Qanat

College in Yazd, Iran, graduated from the first two-year course on their rehabilitation and maintenance.

Water 17Silent menaceD roughts steal fewer headlines than hurricanes or earthquakes, but they usually take an even greater and longer lasting toll, especially on the poor. They have, of course, always been part of the weather caused bysuch events as wind shifts moving arid conditions to normally wet areas, volcanicactivity, or changes in the suns intensity but human activities make things worse.Overgrazing, overcultivation, felling forests and poor irrigation all affect the groundsability to absorb and retain water, and lead to desertification. The loss of vegetationchanges the topsoil temperature and the airs humidity, in turn influencing themovements of atmospheric masses and rainfall, which can lead to drought.

Evidence suggests that the 15-million strong Mayan civilization, which oncestretched from Mexicos Yucatn peninsula to Honduras, came to a sudden endthrough an extended drought made worse by human activity. Lake sedimentsreveal a long dry period punctuated by three intense droughts between 810 and910 AD, which coincided with the fall of the Maya; other researchers have foundevidence of deforestation and soil erosion.

Lito C Ocampo/UNEP/TophamNow, as then, droughts trigger malnutrition and famine. As always, the poor arehit much the hardest. Developed countries usually have mechanisms to cope:during the severe American dustbowl drought of 1931, the government, as partof the New Deal, could support struggling farmers by refinancing mortgages andrestricting the power of banks to dispossess those in debt. But developing countriesmay not have the resources to support or protect their people the Ethiopiandrought of 1983-1984 led to a famine that killed some 300,000 people.

Australia is now in its 12th year of drought the worst on record with worldwideeffects. Its rice crop, once enough to feed 40 million people around the world, QUESTION: WHAT IS CLEANhas been cut by 98 per cent as farmers turn to less water-intensive crops. This WATER WORTH?helped rice prices to double over three months at the beginning of 2008, seriouslycontributing to the growing world food crisis. Yet weather experts warn Australians ANSWER: ITS PRICELESS, INthat this may be the drought that will never break as the climate changes. MORE WAYS THAN ONE.

Certainly, global warming will make things harder worldwide. The Intergovern- It is priceless in the sense of beingmental Panel on Climate Change warns that the frequency and intensity of drought invaluable. After all, no life on Earthis likely to increase as global temperatures rise. Even worse, drought magnifies the could exist without it. But it also haswarming because it reduces the environments ability to absorb carbon dioxide no obvious price attached to it: naturefrom the atmosphere: a severe North American drought in 2002 cut the conti- puries and replenishes freshwaternents natural uptake of carbon dioxide in half because drought-affected forests, supplies for free. And because nobodygrasslands, crops and soil were incapable of absorbing it as much a usual. pays for this vital service, conven- tional economics often treats waterOne authoritative study, by the British Meteorological Office, estimates that drought as having no value. So it gets polluted,will spread across half the worlds land surface by the end of the century if global overexploited and wasted.warming goes unchecked. Complex natural processes have been purifying water since time immemorial. Soils and vegetation like forests, pas- tures or streamside trees and grasses slow the runoff of rain to streams and rivers. The more it slows down, the more time plants have to absorb impurities like heavy metals, the more soil or silt can lter out debris and ne particles, and microorganisms Paul Richardson

like bacteria or fungi can process pol-

lutants including chemicals as well as excess nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous. Similarly, once the water

18 TUNZA Vol 6 No 3 What price water ?

Noriyoshi Kanda/UNEP/Topham Boesch/UNEP/Topham

T Oh/UNEP/Tophamreaches a stream or river, debris like and paving over land prevents the the provisions of the Kyoto Protocoldead trees and branches slows the ground absorbing water, defeating run out in 2012) are examining waysow to help yet other microorganisms the natural cleansing processes, and of compensating developing countriesclean it. forcing water to run off rapidly when it that leave their forests intact through a rains heavily, causing oods. Draining nancial mechanism dubbed ReducedThe plants, trees and porous soils of wetlands and canalizing rivers also Emissions from Deforestation andwatersheds also draw moisture into speeds up the ow of water, making Degradation (REDD). In Ethiopia, thethe ground, where ltered clean as such inundations more common. government is mobilizing its people toit percolates down it is stored as plant a billion trees as part of UNEPsgroundwater. The more vegetation Keeping the Earths natural water puri- Plant for the Planet campaign.there is, the better the soil can absorb cation in working order means pro-water and, in its turn, the slow-moving tecting ecosystems and helping to res- Trying articially to replace what is lostwater promotes growth. Together, they tore those that have been degraded. is rarely as effective and always muchprevent the topsoil necessary for green And part of this requires recognizing more costly than simply protectinggrowth from washing away. the true value of the services they pro- natural services in the rst place. And, vide and the real cost of losing them in the few instances when governmentsAll this only works, of course, if the and translating it into economics. and local authorities have observedwater isnt overloaded with more pollu- The sums are massive. New research this simple rule, they have reapedtants than natural ltration systems can shows, for example, that every year the dividends.cope with. WWF estimates that there felling of forests deprives the world ofare some 12,000 cubic kilometres of over $2.5 trillion worth of such services To take just one example: instead ofheavily polluted water around the globe in supplying water, generating rainfall, splashing out $8 billion on a water puri- thats more water than is contained stopping soil erosion, cleaning the air cation plant, New York State spentin the worlds 10 biggest river basins. It and reducing global warming. By com- just $1.5 billion on restoring a water-gets contaminated by sewage, agricul- parison, the global nancial crisis last shed in the Catskill Mountains thattural fertilizers and pesticides, indus- autumn was estimated to have cost provides drinking water for New Yorktrial chemicals, urban pollution and the world the smaller one-off sum of City. In so doing, it not only cut the costsediments from construction or logging. $1.5 trillion. more than vefold saving a massive $6.5 billion but provided a host ofAnd ecosystems can only cope if they Negotiators of a new treaty to combat other benets from recreation areas toare intact and healthy. Felling forests climate change (to come into effect when ghting global warming.

Water 19 1 2 3 PumpAid Abhijit Bora IDEO

Keeping it simpleIf small is beautiful, simple is often effective. Straightforward solutions using local materials and skills usually work betterthan high-tech interventions, especially in remote areas with limited resources. They offer hope to the more than 1 billionpeople without safe drinking water, and the 2.5 billion without adequate sanitation. Here are a few examples.

1 LIFE-SAVING ELEPHANTS knot. Each pump can provide 250 people with 40 litres ofWhen two children in a Zimbabwe school died from drinking clean water a day, and PumpAid a charity started to spreadpolluted water, three of their teachers Ian Thorpe, Tendai the pumps is now installing 80 per month in Malawi andMawunga and Amos Chitungo vowed that it would never Zimbabwe. So far it has provided clean water to more thanhappen again. Their resolution led them to develop a simple 1 million people in those countries, and its expansion haspump that has spread rapidly through the country and only just begun. And not content with this, PumpAid has nowneighbouring Malawi. developed a concrete Elephant Toilet that costs only $30 to Expensive pumps in many developing countries stand idle install to help address the sanitation crisis.because they have broken down and there are no spare partsto repair them. So the teachers set out to design a cheap one 2 MORE CROP BY DROPthat could be easily mended with readily available materials. Harvests depend on irrigation but, used wrongly, it canBased on a 2,000-year-old Chinese design, the water is waste vast amounts of water and, worse, cause soils tobrought up from a brick-lined well by a series of cupped become salty and infertile. Dispensing the water drip byplastic washers tied every 70 centimetres along a nylon rope. drip, targeting the right amount at the plants roots ratherIt is operated by muscle power rather than a motor but than just sending the water down channels avoids theseneeds so little strength that a child of ve can work it. Using problems. Farmers in the Indian state of Meghalaya havea hand crank or foot treadle, water is drawn up from as much known this for two centuries, using bamboo for such dripas 50 metres underground, at a rate of a litre per second, to irrigation. They divert 18 to 20 litres of water per minutea PVC pipe (the Elephant Pumps trunk). The well is capped from an uphill stream or spring through a complex networkto prevent pollution. of open bamboo pipes to be dispensed near the roots of Easy to install, there is no machinery to go wrong and black pepper plants at the rate of 20 to 80 drops per minute if the rope breaks - it can be repaired merely by tying a making a little go a long way.

UNite to combat CLIMATE CHANGE

3 THATS RECYCLING lined cistern. So dependent was Venice on this system thatHundreds of millions of women in developing countries contaminating the wells was punishable by death. The wellswalk many hours each day to fetch water often carried on are still to be seen all over Venice, though they are no longertheir heads that is unsafe to drink. A rm in Californias in use: in 1886, an aqueduct was built to bring freshwaterSilicon Valley is developing a tricycle to address this. The from nearby mountains. But the technique could be adoptedcyclist rides to the water source, lls an attached tank with in water-scarce areas today.about 77 litres of impure water, and rides home. The act ofpedalling puries the water by moving it through a carbon 6 TRUST THE INCASlter and into a separate clean tank. Just over 3 kilometres Archeologist Ann Kendall was excavating high in Perusof cycling can purify an entire tank and the purier can also Andes in the Cusichaca Valley, now part of the Machu Picchube powered manually. Park, when it occurred to her to apply the results of her research to local needs. The long-abandoned ruins of Incan4 GARLANDS ROCK terraces and irrigation canals which centuries ago fedRainwater has long been collected using long lines of small tens of thousands of people could be rehabilitated to helprocks called garlands mortared onto a larger rock surface, subsistence farmers now eking a living from the depletedwhich direct it to a dam or tank. There are more than 400 of land. She founded the Cusichaca Trust in 1977 which, overthem in Kitui, Kenya, while the people of Gibraltar famous three years, helped villagers rebuild 7 kilometres of canalsfor their Rock collect much of their water by this means. using local materials of stone, gravel, clay, earth and sand to restore broken sections, and sealing the canal beds with clay5 SQUARE HOLES as the ancient Incas did. The water owed into the terracesThe people of Venices lagoons have always had plenty of from uphill streams and lakes, reviving them and allowingsaltwater, but getting the fresh stuff has been a problem. farmers to plant quinoa, maize and other crops. Over the lastUntil the 9th century they used to trek to the mainland to three decades the Trust has helped restore 30 kilometres ofget it, but then started building stone wells as rainwater irrigation canals and 600 hectares of agricultural terraces,catchments in the centre of their squares. The rainwater as well as initiating rural development programmes was channelled by the gutters of the surrounding buildings enhancing the livelihoods of 28,000 people and raising theand sloping pavements into the well, where it was ltered possibility that the worlds other ancient irrigation systemsthrough a layer of sand before being collected in a clay- might be revived for sustainable agriculture.

Y oung people overwhelmingly want governments to the Bayer-UNEP International Childrens Painting Com- to spare no effort to address global warming. petition in New York. The 26 paintings raised more than Almost 90 per cent of 12-18 year olds in Brazil, $21,000 for children affected by climate change disasters. India, Russia, South Africa and the United States of America told an online survey conducted for UNEP Thirteen-year old Charlotte Sullivan, whose picture during October 2008 that world leaders should do what- (shown here) fetched $2,200, said everyone must do ever it takes to tackle climate change. what they can climate change is happening, NOW. And Guy Jayce Nindorera (12) from Burundi explained More than seven in 10 said that the leaders are at present that his painting was inspired both by the situation in his not doing enough and a majority agreed that its necessary country and by reading about what was happening around to take major steps very soon. the world where people are dying of hunger and other catastrophes such as the tsunami, floods and drought the Such concern was vividly on display in New York on 24 result of human actions. We are becoming victims of our October, at UNEPs Paint for the Planet auction of entries own interventions.

Water 21 watery7Crater Lake wonders

It must have been one of the biggest bangs in the Earths history. Nearly 8,000years ago a massive eruption took almost a kilometre off the height of the now3,660-metre-high Mount Mazama volcano in Oregon. It left a 592-metre deepcrater that lled with snow, which then melted to form Crater Lake. The deepestlake in the United States of America, and the deepest anywhere in the worldthats entirely above sea level, it has no inlets or outlets: water arrives throughrain and snow, and leaves by evaporation and seepage. Its water is amongthe clearest in the world, and its nearly pristine ecosystem is watched closelyby researchers. The Klamath tribe of Native Americans whose ancestorswitnessed the explosion remember it in their legends and still consider thelake sacred. Stu Seeger

The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea is dying. The lakes salty waters at the lowest point on Earth, 416 metres below sea level have been retreating by about a metre per year. The waters of the river Jordan, which feed it, have been diverted to supply homes and agriculture. With no outlet, the Dead Seas mineral-rich water evaporates in the desert climate, leaving concentrations of salt nine times higher than in the Mediterranean. True to its name, no plants or animals can live in it only algae and bacteria though people come to experience reclining effortlessly in the water, thought to have healing properties. A controversial plan would build a canal to bring water from the Red Sea, but environmentalists say that properly managing the existing supplies would be better.Kazwell

Lake BaikalLake Baikal contains a fifth of all the worlds unfrozen fresh water. It is thedeepest (1,637 metres) and oldest (25 million years) lake on Earth. Its ageand isolation give it a rich and unique biodiversity. One thousand of its 2,635known species of animals and plants occur nowhere else. These include therare nerpa, one of only three known species of freshwater seals in the world,which can swim for 70 minutes without breathing, and the multicoloured Baikalturbellaria, 30-centimetre-long worms that live on its floor. Its depths, untilnow, have been hidden from people. But in summer 2008 Russian scientistsbegan to explore it with submersibles, so we may be on the brink of unveilingstill more of its mysteries. Fred Bruemmer/Still Pictures

22 TUNZA Vol 6 No 3 Lake Titicaca More than 25 rivers empty their waters into Lake Titicaca, the worlds highest commercially navigable water body at a full 3,812 metres above sea level. A temple on the largest of its 41 islands marks the spot where, tradition holds, the founders of the Inca dynasty, Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, emerged from the depths to establish their empire. Archaeological remains show that there was a civilization beside the lake at least a thousand years ago, but perhaps its most intriguing feature of all is its 40 uros man-made islands named after the people who build and live on them. They are woven from layers of tortora reeds growing on the giant lakes shores, and anchored to its bottom with ropes and poles.Alistair Howard

The NileSo long and wide is the Nile the worlds lengthiest river that the surface areaof its water, 3.35 million square kilometres, is five times the size of France.Flowing for some 6,500 kilometres from East Africa to the Mediterranean, theNile gave birth to the ancient Egyptian civilization and ensured its prosperity.Its annual flooding, each June, deposited rich silt on its floodplains and delta,making them enormously fertile, and ensuring that Eyptian agriculture wasthe most productive and stable in the region. Now 105 million people live alongthe river, mostly in Egypt, and 160 million in its basin, putting its water andagriculture under stress; and their numbers are expected to double in just thenext 25 years. M Serena

Iraqi marshlands Thought to be the inspiration for the Garden of Eden, the marshlands of Iraq the largest wetland ecosystem in the Middle East once spanned approximately 21,000 square kilometres. Among the worlds most important wildlife habitats they are home to half a million people descended from the ancient Babylonians and Sumerians who sh and farm there as their ancestors have done for millennia. During Saddam Husseins regime, the marshes were drained to a tenth of their former size, much of them becoming an uninhabitable salt desert. Recently, with UNEPs help, the marshlands are beginning to be re-ooded and restored, the people are returning, and there are plans to establish them as a UNESCO World Heritage site.B Norman/Ancient Art & Architecture Collection Ltd

Greenland ice sheet

One tenth of the worlds freshwater is locked up in the vast Greenland icesheet; if it were to melt sea levels would rise by 7 metres, inundating manyof the worlds coastal cities along with low-lying countries like Bangladesh.Until recently scientist believed it would not melt for a thousand years, evenwith global warming, but it is now clear that it is happening very much faster,as its giant glaciers stable for centuries start moving rapidly towards thesea. Water gathers on the surface of the ice as it melts, and then plunges downin giant waterfalls through cracks, collecting on the rock beneath the glaciersand acting as great conveyor belts. The Sermeq Kujalleq glacier, the biggest inGreenland, is now losing a staggering 35 cubic kilometres of ice a year. Norbert Rosing/UNEP

Water 23 AT THE BEGINNING OF TIME ...

W ater is central to all life: so it is not surprising that almost every culture, past and present, has myths and legends about humanitys relationship to it. Some like the Norwegian and Icelandic stories of the Kraken sea monsters, or ancient Canaans Leviathan express terror at the immensity and power of the oceans. Others reect waters benets. The Greek naiades were said to guard springs, rivers, fountains and lakes: if the water dried up, the nymphs would die.

Stories of a great deluge which include the tale of Noah

in the Judeo-Christian tradition and Nuh in Islam exist in many variations across many cultures, including Hindu, Maori, ancient Babylonian, Zoroastrian and East African Masaai. They typically tell of how divine forces cleanse a disrespectful civilization with a great ood, allowing only a few humans and animals to survive to repopulate the Earth. The version in the story of Doquebuth from the First Peoples of Western Canada warns of what can happen when nature is not respected.

AT THE BEGINNING OF TIME the Creator made the Earth. There

was land and waters, sun and forests, and each element was given a secret name by the Creator. The Earth was young and strong like a child. The Creator gathered up a few of the wisest people and told them the Earths secret names, but he warned them not to tell the rest of the people. If everyone used the Earths secret names, the Creator explained, the world would stop growing evenly. Years passed and the Earth grew steadily. But after a while, the secret names slipped out. Soon everybody was using the secret names to speak to the elements. They asked the sun to bring warmth and light, they asked the rivers and seas to give them fish, and they asked the earth to look after their ancestors. But when the people started speaking to the forests, the Creators warning of change came true. A giant flood swept over the land. The people had just enough time to fill their largest canoe with plants and animals. As the waters rose, five of the wisest people boarded the canoe and steered it through the waves. After the flood was over, the canoe landed on the flat, dry prairie. When the people stepped onto the land, one of the women held her new baby in her arms. His name was Doquebuth and he had many spirit Hiroji Kubota/Magnum Photos

powers. As the waters receded the people walked back to their lands. When they arrived they found the bones of the people who did not survive the flood. The Creator told Doquebuth to gather up the bones and mix them with soil. Doquebuth fashioned new people out of the mixture and taught them how to plant the saved plants and hunt for the saved animals. Doquebuth, the child of the flood, became the new Creator.